The Hand Signal Traders Use To Say 'Deutsche Bank' Might Offend You

The easiest way to communicate with another trader on the other
side of a noisy trading floor is to use hand signals.

Ryan Carlson, who has worked at the Chicago Board of Trade, the
Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and the New York Mercantile
Exchange, is responsible for TradingPitHistory.com. The
site is an incredible database of hand signals that traders have
used to communicate across trading floors all over the world.

We recently got our hands on a copy of "Trading Pit Hand
Signals," and we were particularly fascinated by the hand
signals used to indicate the various brokerage houses.

"The ability to recognize all market participants was what made
open outcry trading transparent and from this, signals were
developed for the larger brokerages and for some large local
traders," writes Carlson
on his site. "In cases where a more universal signal was
never developed, their hand signal in the pit would simply be
their three digit firm number."

Below are the hand signals used by CME traders to identify some
of the big Wall Street firms (some of which are no longer with
us). You're probably going to have a hard time forgetting them.